But it’s no better when Conservative leader Andrew Scheer claims he can do so without the measure if he wins the 2019 election, as he said Sunday on CTV’s Question Period, adding, “The Liberals would love to have people believe that the choice is a carbon tax or nothing. I reject that.”

Scheer told Evan Solomon he can “guarantee” the Conservatives will unveil a national climate strategy before next year’s election and that it will “of course” meet Canada’s targets under the United Nations’ Paris climate accord, signed by Trudeau, plus tackle other major environmental issues.

“I’ve got five kids, I want them to have a cleaner environment” Scheer said, evoking Liberal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna’s three children as the reason she’s fighting climate change and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s granddaughter for why she’s on board.

Despite government attempts to improve Toronto’s transit system, vehicles on congested streets and highways — like the Gardiner Expressway (pictured) — continue to pump greenhouse gases into the environment. (The Canadian Press)

For the love of God, can we not spare innocent children from blame for the nonsense politicians of all stripes have been spouting on climate change for three decades?

Conservative and Liberal governments have been setting and failing to meet greenhouse gas emission targets going back to the Tory era of Brian Mulroney, the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper and now, the Trudeau government.

It is not helpful for Scheer to join their ranks by telling CTV, “we will be unveiling a very detailed and comprehensive plan because we believe that Canada has to be part of the solution.”

Back in the real world, for Canada to achieve Trudeau’s 2020 commitment under the Paris agreement would require cutting our industrial greenhouse gas emissions, even using the Liberals’ suspect numbers, by 96.4 megatonnes annually (a megatonne or Mt represents one million tonnes) in less than three years, the equivalent of shutting down almost all of Canada’s mining and upstream oil and gas production sector (100 Mt annually).

To meet Trudeau’s 2030 target would require cutting emissions by 191.6 Mt annually in less than 13 years, the equivalent of shutting down almost all of Canada’s transportation sector (199 Mt annually).

These targets were impossible to achieve when Harper set them and they’re more impossible now given the passage of time since Trudeau adopted them.

They would require Ottawa to impose a national carbon price of hundreds of dollars per tonne of emissions immediately, compared to Trudeau’s price of $10 per tonne today, rising to $50 in 2022.

The only way to achieve an effective carbon price without destroying our economy would be to make it revenue neutral, returning all of the money to consumers and businesses in income tax cuts or outright grants.

No government will to do this because the aim of carbon pricing is not to lower emissions, but to increase government revenues under the guise of saving the planet.

There are many things we can do to improve the environment, including but not limited to, addressing climate change.

But that will only begin when politicians tell us the truth.

That is, that the Paris climate accord is a fraud, and that even if every nation on Earth meets its impossible-to-achieve emission targets — which are disproportionately punitive to Canada — it will utterly fail to do what the UN claims it will do.

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